First Weeks lesson in Zephaniah

As some of you may know, Last week my wife challenged me to a two week study in the book of Zephaniah. If you didn't know that, well, now you do. When I was first challenged, I thought,"Man, It's only 3chapters long! How could I study 3 chapters for two weeks and get anything out of it?"  Well, even tho it was a tall order to fill, leave it to God to teach me all kinds of things from a book that gets routinely overlooked.
First I found it very interesting that in Chapter 1 all that Zephaniah does is fortell of the coming judgment of Judah. And boy does he get descriptive. It speaks of how God is going to sweep away man and beast, birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea. I'm no scholar but that sounds pretty definative to me. That sounds like a clean sweep of the planet, not just Judah. I'm not sure and somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that it is talking about the last days. Verse 7 begins talking about the "day of the Lord is near". Verse 17 isn't exactly comforting when it says "I will bring distress on mankind, so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord; their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung."
Yep, If theres one thing to be said about the prophet Zephaniah, its, He wasn't out to win friends. He didnt cut corners and he said it as he saw it. I just can't get away from the thought that this has got to be talking about the last days. Theres too much destruction of the earth being mentioned for any other time in history.
Chapter 2 then goes on to talk about the judgement that the enemies of Judah will face. Again, not winning friends here! Probably one of the most surpriseing things I found here was the mention of Gaza in verse 4. It says "For Gaza shall be deserted". Considering all the trouble that I've always heard over the Gaza strip, I find it ironic that it will be deserted. Here Israel and Palastine have been fighting over this land for the better part of my life or longer and the Bible says that it will be deserted. In verse 6 he says that the seacoast is going to be pastures and meadows for shepherds and their flocks. Again very interesting. Most seacoast is productive with harbors for trade and fishing, and yet he says they will be meadows. That's definately different from the way it is today.
Amid all this destruction and turmoil, their is still a promise from God. In the last part of verse 7 it says " For the Lord will be mindful of them and restore their fortunes. What we force God to take away from us because of our disobedience, He will restore when we repent, turn our faces back to him and live within His will again. This is the promise that we all get to enjoy. I am so thankful for this one promise. I am so thankful that He can and will restore our spiritual fortunes when we seek Him again. Praise God. Tho we may falter and fail, He is a patient God and wants to draw us back to Himself. We must turn from our wickedness and seek Him. When we don't we are preventing the blessings and fortunes that God has in store for us.
Lord, Thank you so much for your saving grace. Lord thank you for guiding me back to you. Thank you for the blessings and fortunes you have in store for me. Thank you for not allowing the destruction that we bring on ourselves to not be permanent. Give us the desire to walk closer to you daily that we might reflect your glory and majesty in our lives. Thank you for the words of Zephaniah. Thank you for teaching me thru this book. May I continue to learn what you would have me learn in this study. In Jesus Name, Amen